Realm of Light

by Deborah Chester

  He kissed her forehead and moved away from her. For now, he had done all he could for Elandra.

  Another task lay before him. It was time to face it. Guilt, no matter how strongly deserved, was a burden that could grow too heavy for anyone to bear. It was time to hunt the ghosts and lay the memories to rest.

  Turning away from Elandra, he lit a stick from the fire. Holding it aloft as a torch, he headed deeper into the cave, in search of his sister’s bones.

  At the very rear of the cave, a folded curtain of stone hung from the ceiling. Some instinct made Caelan approach it. Putting out his hand, he curled his fingers around the edge of the curtain and found empty space behind it. A narrow fissure led into another room beyond the first.

  This cave was sheathed in ice, as cold as the outdoors, and utterly silent as though no living thing had ever entered it. The moment he set foot in it, something began to glitter around him, like stars cast down from the night sky. They winked and twinkled from the ceiling overhead, from the ground before him, from the walls.

  Raising his small torch higher in an effort to see, he realized that these were emeralds embedded in the ice. Polished and cut like fine jewels, they were reflecting back his torch.

  They were too many to count. Dazzled by their beauty as well as by the wealth they represented, he stared at the sight for a moment. With these, he could buy an army of his own. He could buy the empire itself, if he chose.

  When he realized what he was thinking, Caelan was flooded with shame. He bowed his head and cursed himself. How could he think of his own ambitions at a time like this? He might as well be a boy again, full of his own plans and tempted to steal his little sister’s emeralds to buy a commission in the army.

  “No, Caelan.”

  Startled, he glanced up and around but saw no one. He listened a moment. “Elandra?”

  She did not respond.

  He stepped back to the fissure and listened again, feeling he should return to her. She needed him by her side. He must not linger here.

  Anxious now to finish his search, he crossed the icy cavern, trying to ignore the beauty of the emeralds as he sought evidence of his sister. Then the feeble torchlight fell upon a tiny mound of fabric.

  Hurrying over to it, he crouched and picked up the red cloak that Lea had been wearing the last time he saw her.

  Summer moths had eaten holes in it. A rodent had gnawed away one corner. It was covered with dust that floated in the air as he shook the cloth.

  He half feared he would find her remains beneath the garment, but there was only the ice-encrusted floor.

  Dropping the torch, he clutched the cloak in both hands, seeking answers to the questions that haunted him.

  Had she stayed here in the cave as he had told her? Had she waited until she starved? Or had she ventured out, trying to follow the stream to E’raumhold? If so, why had she left her cloak behind? Where had she gone? What had become of her? Had her end been swift and merciful, or slow torture? At the end, had she still hoped he would return as promised? Or had she died knowing he betrayed her?

  “Oh, Lea,” he whispered aloud, bending over the cloak. “I came back. I did keep my promise.”

  Too late, said the guilt in his mind. Too late.

  The scent of flowers filled the air, and suddenly the cave felt warm and almost pleasant.

  “It is never too late, Caelan,” said a feminine voice. “Love is always in time.”

  Startled, he looked up to find the cave filled with a clear, pale light. A slender maiden stood before him, gowned in pine green with a wreath of flowers entwined in her golden hair. A thick braid reached down over her left shoulder, the way his mother used to wear hers. Blue eyes, both merry and wise, twinkled at him.

  “Welcome, dearest brother,” she said.

  Still kneeling, he stared up at her, unable to speak, unable to think. Surely his hunger was making him see things.

  “I am fourteen now,” she said and smiled so that her dimples appeared. “Am I not well grown? Do you think I am pretty?”

  Then she came running to him and flung her arms around his neck. “Oh, Caelan, Caelan!” she cried, laughing and kissing his cheek over and over. “How glad I am that you have come home. I have missed you so much. I wanted you back here with me. I made you come.”

  He could not understand it. He dared not believe it. And yet... “Lea,” he said, his voice choking as he hugged her back. She was real flesh and blood in his arms. He found himself in tears. “Dear gods, is it you?”

  “Of course, silly.”

  Pushing away from him, she threw back her head and laughed, then caught his hand and drew him to his feet. Now it was her turn to stare up at him. She did so, studying him hard from every angle.

  “How big you are now. How broad your shoulders are. And you’re taller. But so am I!”

  Laughing, she skipped away and twirled about the room until her gown belled around her ankles. Then she raced back up to him and gave him another hug around the waist.

  “I am so happy now. Did I say how much I have missed you?”

  He grabbed her by the arms to keep her from skipping away again. “Slow down, you minx,” he said, half laughing at her antics. It was as though the years had fallen away, and they were playing and tussling the way they used to. He had the urge to toss her high in the air and tickle her until she begged him to stop.

  But she was too old for that. Why, she was grown, practically a woman now. He kept starting to say something to her, only to stop and stare, his breath forgotten in his throat, his words lost.

  “Look at you,” he said at last. “How, Lea? How did you survive?”

  “You told me to wait,” she said. “After a while, I couldn’t do that, but I came back every day to see if you’d kept your promise. And here you are! I knew you wouldn’t fail me. I wanted you to come back, and you have.”

  Questions crowded his mind, too many to ask all at once. This was so hard to comprehend. He wanted to dance in joy, and yet he could not believe she was here or that she was really alive.

  He pulled her near again, touching her face, tugging at her hair, entwining her fingers in his. They were long and tapered now instead of chubby and small.

  “How?” he whispered, his amazement continuing to grow. “You must tell me how.”

  “How I made you come back?”

  He squeezed her hands in an effort to make her be serious. “No, how you lived after I abandoned you. Where did you go? Who looked after you?”

  Her gaze swung away from his. “So many questions—”

  “I must know!” he insisted. “I thought you were dead. All these years, I have blamed myself for abandoning you.”

  “But you didn’t,” she said earnestly. “You had to help Father. I understand that now.”

  “I couldn’t do anything to help him,” Caelan said bitterly, seeing the raid all over again. “I was a boy, without weapons, unable to fight properly. I should have stayed with you. Instead, I ran away and left you crying here in the cave.”

  “I don’t cry now,” she said. “I’m too grown up.”

  He choked and dropped to his knees before her. “Forgive me, Lea.”

  “Hush, Caelan. Hush.” She touched his face with her hands, soothing away his distress. “Don’t be sad. I don’t blame you for anything.”

  He kissed her hands, thankful for her mercy. “You were always of a good and generous heart, little one. I blamed myself.”

  “I know,” she said, suddenly serious. “You have suffered dreadfully. If only I could have made you come back sooner, you wouldn’t have hurt so much. But I had to grow first. I had so much to learn.”

  She sat down in front of him, tucking her gown around her feet as though she were impervious to the ice-cold floor. He noticed then that she wore the nine thumb-sized emeralds in a necklace around her slim throat. Many girls of marriageable age wore their dowries as necklaces. But who had made such a necklace for her? Who had taken her in and given her s
uch fine clothing to wear? Who had cared for her?

  “No questions,” she said, holding his large, callused hand in her slim one. “Not now. I promise we’ll talk of those things, Caelan, but later in a less important time.”

  “But—”

  “Hush,” she said, her blue eyes very serious now. “I must study you. There are things I must know, and I will learn them quicker this way than if we talk. Don’t close yourself to me. Please.”

  Before he could speak, he felt her brush against his mind and riffle his thoughts. He felt her soul slip through his, leaving a refreshing sense of having dived into cool water on a hot summer’s day. He felt her sift through his past before he could stop her, then she was gone from him, separate, blinking in front of him, and looking a little pale.

  “Oh, my,” she said breathlessly. “Oh, my.”

  She knew it all, knew his failures, his moments of shame, his secrets. Just as she had always known them. It had never been easy to keep anything concealed from her. Now he suspected it might be impossible.

  She turned his hand over in hers and stroked his palm with her fingertips. “So much blood,” she murmured. “So much killing. I can hear the death screams of countless men. Do they trouble your dreams?”

  There was no point in lying. “Yes.”

  “Have you taken enough lives to pay back the Fates for Father’s death?”

  He squirmed uncomfortably. Lea went, as always, straight to the heart of the matter. “No,” he said after a moment. “That will never be erased.”

  “Why do you blame yourself for Father’s death?” she asked.

  He looked into her eyes for grief and found only clear-eyed concern for him in their depths. Sighing, Caelan said, “I don’t know. It’s been so long. It’s all confusion now.”

  “Yes, you are confused. I thought you would have finished your lessons by now, but you haven’t. You are always so slow, Caelan.”

  “What—”

  She jumped to her feet. “Do you still have your emeralds? The ones we found here together? They were to be your talismans. Did you keep them or sell them for a sword?”

  “Come and see.”

  He took her back to the other cave, where the formations of stone hung twisted and folded as they had for all time, where his huge emerald still glowed beside the little fire, where Elandra lay caught in the dark spell that had captured her.

  Lea gasped and shrank against him in unexpected shyness. “Who is she?”

  “Her name is Elandra. She is our sovereign empress and the wife of Emperor Kostimon.”

  “She is beautiful,” Lea whispered.

  Joy swelled his heart. Lea’s approval meant everything. He hugged her and kissed the top of her head.

  Lea pulled away from him. “Is she sleeping?”

  “No,” Caelan said, his joy fading. “She is dying.”

  “How?”

  “A shyriea—a demon that flies and attacks like—”

  “I know what it is,” Lea said.

  He glanced at her in wonder, but asked no questions. “It bit her. The venom is poisoning her blood, turning her into the darkness. I fear—I fear she will change into—”

  Lea turned and gripped his hand a moment. Her blue eyes met his, and they were direct, reassuring, and oddly mature. “Do not fear, Caelan. You have brought her into a place of protection, just as you brought me. No harm can befall her here.”

  “But—”

  She lifted a finger to her lips to silence him, then turned and knelt beside Elandra. With gentle hands she touched Elandra’s brow. Closing her eyes, Lea began to sing a low, wordless melody in a voice like gold.

  It was like hearing his mother sing to him again at bedtime. Caelan turned away for a moment, overtaken by memories of gentle hands smoothing the bedclothes, of soft lips kissing his cheek, of the song lulling him into the warm caress of sleep.

  Overcome, he found his throat choking up. In silence he fled, stooping through the tunnel to the mouth of the cave. Rushing outside, he stood in the gully, shielded a bit from the wind-whipped snow, and drew in rapid lungfuls of the frosty air.

  Lea’s song made him think of purity, of kindness and peace, all the virtues, innocence and goodness. The notes of her music were being woven around Elandra, protecting and preserving her. But the song had driven him out, for he was tainted. Blood would forever stain his hands. Even if he lived as a hermit on a lonely rock for the rest of his days, he would never be able to purify himself.

  Wrapping up in his cloak against the terrible cold, he stood shivering against the embankment, risking attack from the wind spirits, letting the harsh sleet rasp his face. Now and then when the wind lulled momentarily, he could hear a note or two of Lea’s singing. He wished she could sing such a song over him and wipe away his past, but he knew that was not possible. For Caelan could feel his future all the way to his bones. He thought of that moment when he had been linked together with Kostimon in Choven fire against the shyrieas; he thought of the various swords he had held and how some of them sang to him of battle and how others whispered combat secrets that no man knew to teach him. He had been made for war. Every muscle and sinew in his strong body had been forged for combat. He would fight again, and he would kill again. That he knew.

  And therefore, Lea’s song of healing was not for him.

  “Caelan?”

  Her voice reached out softly to him from the cave.

  Turning his head, he listened a moment, then climbed back inside. When he reached the women, he saw that the fire had gone out, yet light still glowed around Lea and Elandra. The little cavern was warm and comfortable. The scent of flowers seemed very strong. He could feel a presence with them that made his skin prickle uneasily, then it was gone.

  Lea was smiling with her eyes closed. She still knelt there beside Elandra, and for an instant she seemed to fade and grow transparent. It was like looking at a ghost or a spirit.

  Caelan’s heart fell within him. In an instant he understood that Lea was not real, was not alive as he had thought. The miracle of her survival had been only a dream. Yes, she was here, but as part of the spirit world, and that meant she was indeed dead and lost to him.

  Chapter Ten

  Staring at her in horror, he slowly backed away.

  Lea turned her head to look at him, and her blue eyes widened. “No, Caelan!”

  He couldn’t bear to speak to her. What cruelty was this? What capricious god took amusement at giving him Lea against all hope or reason, then made her nothing more than a ghost?

  Lea’s eyes tried to hold his. “You’re wrong. Please listen—”

  With a cry, Caelan turned and ran, stooping, down the tunnel. He had to get out of here, had to get away from her.

  She came after him, throwing her arms around his waist and squeezing tight to hold him.

  He turned on her, pushing her off. “Get away from me!”

  Tears filled her eyes. “I’m real. I’m real!”

  He shut out her voice, refusing to listen. Again he turned his back on her and headed for the mouth of the cave.

  She caught his cloak and tugged. “Please, please listen to me. Touch my hand. I’m flesh and blood, Caelan, just like you.”

  Her pleas tore at his heart. He wanted to believe her, yet he couldn’t. All he trusted was the evidence of his own eyes.

  “Do you not waver from the sight of others when you sever!” she asked. “Has no one ever been frightened by you? Has no one ever misunderstood what you are doing?”

  He glanced back at her with a frown. “What?”

  “Can you not come and go among people without being seen? Can you not step into the spirit world and exit as you choose? Can you not move faster than thought, so fast sometimes your opponent cannot see you?”

  His frown deepened. He did not want to listen to her, yet he could not help it. How could she know what it was like?

  “Oh, Caelan,” she said, her voice full of compassion, “do you not yet know what we are?�
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  He stared at her, too amazed to answer, but his mind was shifting into one rapid thought after another. Lea, who could read his mind, who had answered his thoughts as though they were spoken aloud since she had first learned to talk. Lea, who wished for things that then came true, as though her will could bend events themselves. Lea, whose gentle spirit had always been his guide and conscience.

  “What are you saying?” he whispered.

  She stepped closer, her eyes still locked on his. Holding out her hand to him, she said, “Am I real?”

  He flinched back. “I don’t know! I have lately walked in a place where the mind can be twisted. All these years I have grieved for you, thinking you were dead, wishing I could see you again.”

  “I am not dead. I am not a ghost. Caelan, look with truth. Don’t let your fear blind you.”

  “What is the truth?” he asked hoarsely, dragging in a breath. “How do you still come to be here? How are you still alive? Who cares for you? What happened to you?”

  “I told you this is a place of sanctuary.”

  “Sanctuary? What do you mean?”

  “A place of protection. The gentle spirits keep it. Anyone who comes here is safe. I knew this when I used to play here. You knew it when you left me here.”

  “I knew nothing,” he said savagely. “Except that I abandoned you to starve.”

  “You knew,” she insisted. “Instinctively, if nothing else. And when you told me to stay here until you came back, I did. In a way.”

  He looked away angrily. “Impossible! Why do you lie?”

  “Why do you refuse the truth?”

  Her words were gentle; her tone was reasonable. But he couldn’t believe her.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, looking hurt. “I thought you would understand by now. I shouldn’t have approached you this way. But I was so glad to see you, so happy. After all these years I had the chance to bring you back to me.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  She met his gaze, and her eyes were clear and guileless. “I wished you to come back to me, and you did. When I saw that you were coming through the Gate of Sorrows, I—”